Tag Archives: Jr.

According to R. Emmett Tyrell, Jr. at The American Spectator, the Andy Warhol Foundation is threatening to pull it’s funding from the Smithsonian. Their complaint is that the Smithsonian caved to Republicans and the Catholic League over “hosting a video showing ants crawling over the crucifix entitiled “Fire in My Belly.”

As Tyrell says, the double standard that the liberals operate on is fundamental to their mindset. It’s okay, justified and in fact, righteous to disturb the peace of those who disagree with them but when the public at large doesn’t want their ‘art’, it becomes an issue of social injustice, bigotry, civil rights violations and hate crime.

“If the ants were swarming all over the Koran it would clearly be a hate crime and out it would go without the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts having a leg to stand on.”

Not only would the Foundation not have a leg to stand on but they would be in the front lines demanding religious tolerance and decrying the bigotry of holding such an exhibit — but only for Muslims.

The Foundation’s argument is one of censorship. “For the Arts to flourish,” writes Joel Wachs, president of the Warhol foundation, “the arts must be free, and the decision to censor this important work is in stark opposition to our mission to defend freedom of expression wherever and whenever it is under attack.”

No one has censored this particular video or the entire exhibit for that matter. This video is available at another New York City museum for those who are so inclined to view and support it. No one is stifling the ‘art’ of anyone. Taxpayers just don’t want to pay for it. All art should be paid for by those interested in supporting it; that’s where private foundations and patrons come in. Raise your own money for this “very important” exhibit.

Don’t be mistaken, this is not about freedom of expression or censorship. The liberals would love to paint that picture but it’s simply not true. This is about religious persecution of those who are not Muslim or those whose religion is not fashionable to the artsy, elite left. This particular assault on Christianity by the left is passive and insidious compared to the persecution they are suffering worldwide. Pope Benedict highlights this in his World Peace Day missive:

“Sadly, the year now ending has again been marked by persecution, discrimination, terrible acts of violence and religious intolerance,” Benedict lamented […]

Benedict singled out the “reprehensible attack” on a Baghdad cathedral during Mass in October, killing two priests and more than 50 other worshippers, as well as attacks on private homes that “spread fear within the Christian community and (create) a desire on the part of many to emigrate in search of a better life.”

[…]

“At present, Christians are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account of its faith,” the pontiff asserted, and cited Christian communities suffering from violence and intolerance particularly in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Holy Land.

“This situation is intolerable, since it represents an insult to God and to human dignity” as well as “a threat to security and peace,” Benedict wrote [. . .]

It’s time that Christians fought back. If that means fighting in court, then so be it. The First Amendment guarantees us that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” No one or entity, including the government or a private foundation, have the right to stifle the free exercise of religious worship and religious assembly. But the left has hijacked the government and the courts and is passively (without violence) persecuting and stifling the practice of religion by Christians in America.

We see this passive religious persecution in America every day, from Chase Bank refusing to allow their banks to decorate for the holidays to schools that no longer allow Christmas trees.

If the left objects to paying, with tax dollars, for a Nativity scene on the courthouse lawn, then there is no problem with the religious objecting to pay for an exhibit of ‘art’ that depicts Christ or Christianity in an abusive, illegitimate and dishonest way.

As Governor Christie said (on another topic): the double standard ends now. Christians have to stand up and object as loudly, and if necessary as obnoxiously as the left has.

“There is only one political value that they [progressives] have stood by through three generations, and that is the political value of disturbing your neighbor.” If conservatism is a temperament, he adds, “liberalism is an anxiety—an anxiety about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which explains their eagerness to coerce, to tax, to social-engineer.” R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. interviewed in the Wall Street Journal

I think that is one of the best descriptions of the progressive (or as I like to call it, communist) movement in America.

Tyrrell has just published his book, After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery which has been highly praised and recommended by everyone on the right. This book will be the next on my “must read” list. He is the founder and publisher of The Spectator.

“While public polling showed that initial approval of Obama’s response was above 50 percent, two months of Republican criticism have taken a toll. Now a narrow 46 to 42 percent plurality of likely voters say they feel less confident about the administration’s handling of national security because of how it responded to the incident,” the pollsters said.

Don’t you find this interesting? Republican criticism is taking a toll on the One’s approval rating? This is the party that no one pays attention to. The party that gets virtually no media coverage. And the only coverage that the media gives it, is negative. The media gives no time to the republican leadership or what they have to say unless it’s to denigrate them. That being the case, how has any “republican criticism” even gotten to the eyes and ears of the American people?

Oh wait… could it possibly be most people are watching Fox News, where most of the real news is coming from?

The polling was commissioned by a left wing think tank founded by, for one, Clintonista James Carville.

A majority of Americans say the United States is less respected in the world than it was two years ago and think President Obama and other Democrats fall short of Republicans on the issue of national security, a new poll finds.

The Democracy Corps-Third Way survey released Monday finds that by a 10-point margin — 51 percent to 41 percent — Americans think the standing of the U.S. dropped during the first 13 months of Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Stunningly, the pollsters seem to be stunned by the numbers:

“This is surprising, given the global acclaim and Nobel peace prize that flowed to the new president after he took office,” said pollsters for the liberal-leaning organizations.

Hey fellas, here’s a news flash for ya – no one cares that he won that medal. In fact, Obama winning that prize did nothing but diminish it’s already lackluster prestige.

I guess it hasn’t occured to these pollsters that Obama is not the president of the “globe.” although that’s what he wanted everyone to believe. Remember his line “we are all citizens of the world?” And that perhaps, just perhaps the real people he serves have found out that he is less than messiah-like.

A final question: Considering his world tour last year to all the Islamic nations in the middle east, has Obama been to Israel? I don’t think he has been but I can’t be sure – he’s been everywhere else in the last 16 months, though.

RADFORD — In a speech Wednesday, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond called on defenders of civil rights to support the country’s first black president as he faces what is expected to be tough second year in office.

Bond’s remarks at Radford University’s fourth annual celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday came a day after the Democratic Party lost the late Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat to Republican Scott Brown, and with it, the party’s filibuster-proof majority.

The election puts Obama’s health care overhaul in jeopardy and has caused speculation that public opinion may be turning against the president.

While “black faces in high places” give reason for hope, Bond, the 70-year-old founder of the storied Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, argued that “racism is alive and well for every nonwhite American, including the president.”

Obama’s historic election has ironically caused complacency among some civil rights supporters, who see it is a sign that racism in America is dead.

But that same election has energized “the Taliban wing” of the Republican Party, Bond said, from anti-government groups such as the “birthers,” who challenge Obama’s citizenship, to “tea party” members who call for the dismantling of much of the federal government.

Bond cited a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center that found “the number of hate groups operating in the United States continued to rise in 2008 and has grown by 54 percent since 2000 — an increase fueled last year by immigration fears, a failing economy and the successful campaign of Barack Obama.”

While the recession has hurt all Americans, blacks still suffer more than their white counterparts. Today the unemployment rate for blacks stands at 15.7 percent, compared with 9.5 percent among whites, Bond said.

Infant mortality and murder rates are up in black communities across the country, Bond said. Black homeownership is declining rapidly, and with it, the wealth of the black middle class.

“This didn’t happen by accident,” Bond said.

He accused mortgage lenders of targeting black neighborhoods with high-interest subprime loans and pointed to discrimination suits recently filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People against some of the country’s largest banking firms. Bond has led the NAACP for 11 years.

Obama “is paying a high price today for not solving in one year the problems it took eight years to create,” Bond said. “He needs time and support.”

Bond drew parallels between the civil rights movement and Obama’s battles for reform. He called for a return to the values of the struggle against segregation: “Litigate. Organize. Mobilize. Coalition,” Bond said.